Our memory of Sixties New Left radicals often evokes marches in the streets, battles with the police, or urban bombings. However, the New Left was a multi-faceted movement, with diverse tendencies. One of these tendencies promoted electoral as the way to change America. In every city that was a center of New Left activism, this "Electoral New Left" entered the political arena. A surprisingly large number of these New Left radicals were elected to office: City Council, Mayor, State Senate, even the U.S. Senate. Once in office, they persisted and prevailed. Cities and places we think of today as eternally liberal-Berkeley, Madison, Ann Arbor, even the state of Vermont-were, deeply conservative and deeply Republican before the triumphs of the local Electoral New Left. These "Radicals in Power," however, brought about a lasting political realignment in their locales, and embodied the vision of a better future that was at the heart of all New Left activism. However, the accomplishments of the Electoral New Left, even its very existence, are almost completely unexplored. Historians of the social and political movements of the Sixties have focused on anti-Vietnam War protest movements, or on the Revolutionary New Left. Radicals in Power corrects that oversight and, in doing so, rewrites the history of the Sixties and the New Left. Based on interviews with the elected New Left radicals in each of their cities, Davin details the birth and evolution of a local and regional progressive politics that has, heretofore, been overlooked.

This book explores the relation between democracy and industrialization in United States history. Over the course of the 1930s, the political center almost disappeared as the Democratic New Deal became the litmus test of class, with blue collar workers providing its bedrock of support while white collar workers and those in the upper-income levels opposed it. By 1948 the class cleavage in American politics was as pronounced as in many of the Western European countries-such as France, Italy, Germany, or Britain-with which we usually associate class politics. Working people created a new America in the 1930s and 1940s which was a fundamental departure from the feudalistic and hierarchical America that existed before. They won the political rights of American citizenship which had been previously denied them. They democratized labor-capital relations and gained more economic security than they had ever known. They obtained more economic opportunity for them and their children than they had ever known and they created a respect for ethnic workers, which had not previously existed. In the process, class politics re-defined the political agenda of America as-for the first time in American history-the political universe polarized along class lines. Eric Leif Davin explores the meaning of the New Deal political mobilization by ordinary people by examining the changes it brought to the local, county, and state levels in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and Pennsylvania as a whole.

Partners in Wonder revolutionizes our knowledge of women and early science fiction. Contrary to accepted interpretations, women fans and writers were a welcome and influential part of pulp science fiction from the birth of the genre. Davin finds that at least 203 female authors, under their own female names, published over a thousand stories in science fiction magazines between 1926 and 1965. This work explores the distinctly different form of science fiction that females produced--one that was both more utopian and more empathetic than that of their male counterparts. Partners in Wonder presents, for the first time, a complete bibliography of every story published by women writers in science fiction magazines from 1926 to 1965 and brief biographies on 133 of these women writers. It is thus the most comprehensive source of information on early women science fiction writers yet available and of great importance to scholars of women's studies, popular culture, and English literature as well as science fiction.

Our memory of Sixties New Left radicals often evokes marches in the streets, battles with the police, or urban bombings. However, the New Left was a multi-faceted movement, with diverse tendencies. One of these tendencies promoted electoral as the way to change America. In every city that was a center of New Left activism, this "Electoral New Left" entered the political arena. A surprisingly large number of these New Left radicals were elected to office: City Council, Mayor, State Senate, even the U.S. Senate. Once in office, they persisted and prevailed. Cities and places we think of today as eternally liberal-Berkeley, Madison, Ann Arbor, even the state of Vermont-were, deeply conservative and deeply Republican before the triumphs of the local Electoral New Left. These "Radicals in Power," however, brought about a lasting political realignment in their locales, and embodied the vision of a better future that was at the heart of all New Left activism. However, the accomplishments of the Electoral New Left, even its very existence, are almost completely unexplored. Historians of the social and political movements of the Sixties have focused on anti-Vietnam War protest movements, or on the Revolutionary New Left. Radicals in Power corrects that oversight and, in doing so, rewrites the history of the Sixties and the New Left. Based on interviews with the elected New Left radicals in each of their cities, Davin details the birth and evolution of a local and regional progressive politics that has, heretofore, been overlooked.

This book explores the relation between democracy and industrialization in United States history. Over the course of the 1930s, the political center almost disappeared as the Democratic New Deal became the litmus test of class, with blue collar workers providing its bedrock of support while white collar workers and those in the upper-income levels opposed it. By 1948 the class cleavage in American politics was as pronounced as in many of the Western European countries-such as France, Italy, Germany, or Britain-with which we usually associate class politics. Working people created a new America in the 1930s and 1940s which was a fundamental departure from the feudalistic and hierarchical America that existed before. They won the political rights of American citizenship which had been previously denied them. They democratized labor-capital relations and gained more economic security than they had ever known. They obtained more economic opportunity for them and their children than they had ever known and they created a respect for ethnic workers, which had not previously existed. In the process, class politics re-defined the political agenda of America as-for the first time in American history-the political universe polarized along class lines. Eric Leif Davin explores the meaning of the New Deal political mobilization by ordinary people by examining the changes it brought to the local, county, and state levels in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and Pennsylvania as a whole.

The Paterson Silk Strike of 1913 was a major struggle in the history of American labor. Over 25,000 Italian and Jewish workers shut down Paterson's 300 silk mills and dye houses for almost five months over the issue of workers' control of the rate of production. It was the biggest strike in Paterson's history. Workers overcame their differences in craft, nationality, and gender; and their democratic self-organization became a school in self-management. The workers invited the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) to aid them. The IWW included a stress on the active role of workers in the strike and this revolutionary vision of workers' control reached its fullest expression in the Paterson Strike Pageant performed by the workers themselves in Madison Square Garden. This was a revolutionary innovation in theater and labor struggles which remains an inspiration to labor and the Left.